What Might Have Been
by Lady Addiction
Summary: Brightly Burning" cookie: One day, Hikaru comes home with a Go-obsessed ghost. This sounds rather familiar. But what if this Hikaru was not as techno-inept as that Shindou Hikaru several dimensions away? (oneshot, complete)


_**WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN**_

_A "Brightly Burning" Cookie_

_By Lady Addiction_

_DISCLAIMERS: "Hikaru no Go" is not owned by this author in any fashion; all characters and settings have only been borrowed. "Brightly Burning" is a tremendous AU fic by the talented Aishuu and this author only begs her pardon and patience for writing a fic based on hers._

_RATING: Gen_

_WARNINGS: AU based on an AU, OOCness?_

_SUMMARY: One day, Hikaru comes home with a Go-obsessed ghost. This sounds rather familiar. But what if this Hikaru was not as techno-inept as that Shindou Hikaru several dimensions away?_

_NOTES: Aishuu gave me the go-ahead to post this! Anyway, she did say that it's not what actually happens at BB, but who cares? She likes it-bounces around-_

_More fic notes at the bottom for clarification. _

WWWW

_:How was it, _Shindou Hikaru wondered one Friday afternoon as he sat on a cool bench, watching an apologetic spirit sob beside him:_that mangas and novels manage to portray having weird events in your life as the best things that could ever happen to you: _Because the young Japanese boy was having an exceedingly strange occurrence and so far, it has been one heck of a pain in the unmentionables.

Hikaru's Very Weird Week started on Monday, when his History teacher handed back their latest test results and he was only asked to come see her when class was over. Hikaru had Bad feelings about it.

Bad was right: he was informed that he was at that borderline between pass and fail, and that his parents were requested to meet with his student advisor to discuss his academic performance. Hikaru had detoured to the nearest arcade and stayed as late as he could, hoping against hope there'd be some emergency or miracle to let him off facing his mother. The spirits weren't that merciful, and neither was his student advisor who had thoughtfully preempted his student advisee by leaving a message for his parents on the answering machine.

He was now grounded for a month, registered in one of the horrendous after-school tutoring classes (how he was going to juggle that and his soccer practice, he didn't know), and forbidden to receive a single yen of his allowance until his grades started to show a marked improvement.

Then, after moping all day Tuesday, Hikaru had the bright idea of running off to his grandfather's and rummaging through his shed for something to sell. His grandparents had welcomed him warmly, then abruptly left him in charge while they went to buy some supplies for dinner. Hikaru had not wasted his opportunity.

It would, of course, be Just His Luck to spot that dusty goban. His grandfather was very fond of regaling Hikaru with all his previous Go tournaments and winnings. Hikaru had even found it impressive when he was around 4 and had eagerly asked for lessons. A year and a half later, he discovered the magic of videogames and soccer. Go had been relegated as one of Those Activities To Do With Grandpa.

Still, as he eyed that goban, Hikaru did remember seeing gobans selling for decent prices at the odd store, even the ugly, portable ones. This piece would sell for a lot more, considering it was a gorgeous work and was an antique to boot (Hikaru, of course, found out later just how 'antique' it was).

With visions of yen dancing in his head, the young boy pounced on the Goban.

And well, we all know how that went.

WWWW

So Wednesday morning, Hikaru woke up to find himself sharing headspace with a giddy, overly-affectionate ghost in a tall hat and ghastly white robes. He had Not Been Happy.

The rest of that day and the next had not gone well, either. Of course, that might have been because Sai had made him puke at one point and had also been the cause of Hikaru being beaned on the head during gym class.

But, mostly, Hikaru was getting sore about being badgered about Go over and over. It didn't help that whenever he finally gave in and played Sai on his old foldable board, he always lost, even with a handicap of 19 stones or more. Hikaru Did Not Like losing.

"Sai, is Go all you think about?" he asked, irritated, on Friday afternoon of that long, miserable week. Sai's antics had given him so much distraction during soccer practice that their coach had to bench their top striker. Now Hikaru was alternately eyeing the field longingly or glowering at his unwelcome mental passenger.

To his credit, the ghost did look ashamed and rather repentant as he was kneeling in seiza beside Hikaru. "I'm sorry, Hikaru…it's just, it's been so long since I've last played a game. All the while I was in that Goban, I have dreamed of once again being able to play…Oh! Hikaru, if you only knew…" The boy stared at the spirit skeptically as Sai began a long, pretty soliloquy on the merits of Go.

Hikaru sighed and looked down at his cleats. While he could not really understand Sai's obsession, he did understand what it was like to really love something you wanted to do it all day. It was how he felt towards soccer, after all. To him, all of the classes at school were simply the price for being able to play soccer in tournaments and practice games. He had even given up most of his weekends and weeknights during the game seasons to practice. He played in the wet and the dry, the hot and the cold, letting nothing so insignificant as the weather dampen his enthusiasm and verve.

That inkling of understanding was what led him to initially play Sai on the flimsy wooden board he had used to practice when he was a kid. However, it was soon pretty evident that: A) he was absolutely no match for Sai and, B) playing soccer was definitely better than playing Go. Go made his brain hurt, he got fidgety after sitting for long stretches of time, and Sai just kicked his ass as easily as Hikaru did ball-lifting exercises (even more effortless probably).

However, the boy knew he had to do something. Sai and his moods had a very physical effect on him, as proven when he had ridiculed and refused to let Sai play Go ever. The only times he had felt that bad (or worse) were whenever he caught the stomach flu.

Just then the whistle blew and Hikaru's eyes shot back to the field just in time to see one of their midfielders take a bad fall as he was slammed into the ground by one of the bigger, uglier defenders. The player didn't get up, but instead hugged his left leg to his chest. Hikaru grimaced as the coach ran to check the other boy over, before helping him limp to the bench. It was Mito Mitsui, one of the regulars. "Oi, Mito, what happened?" Hikaru asked, watching as the manager, Fujimi Akiko, ran over with the first-aid kit.

"Tomoeda and Kadou are up to their tricks again. They've been tagteaming me all practice. Tomoeda's probably still sore about Hana-chan," Mito replied, wincing as Akiko-chan gently took off his shoe and sock. Halfway down his left leg were bleeding scratches and it looked like there would be some minor bruising.

Hikaru grinned and slapped the other boy on the shoulder. "Well, maybe you should get Hana-chan to take care of it instead of Akiko-chan here – she's probably gentler." Their manager, a plump but pretty girl with red-streaked hair and blue eyes, stuck out her tongue at Hikaru while she quickly swabbed and bandaged Mito's wounds. "I'll remember that when I have to patch you up, Shindou-kun," Akiko replied primly.

"Ne, ne, Hikaru, is he going to be alright?" Sai asked, hovering over them worriedly.

_:Aa:_ Hikaru projected. He had been practicing this after his mother had began to ask him who he was talking to whenever she came in between a conversation with Sai. The last thing he wanted was for people to start thinking he was some kind of lunatic._ :Soccer can be kinda rough. He'll probably have to lay off for a couple of weeks and then he'll be able to play again.:_

Then an idea occurred to him. He turned to Mito again. "Oi, Mito, do you play Go?"

"What? That geezer-game? Of course not! If I did play games like that, I'd probably go for shogi. Why, do you play?"

Hikaru ignored Sai's rampaging upset at his beloved passion being called a 'geezer-game' again (he had used the exact same term earlier in their acquaintance and almost had his eardrums shattered when Sai lectured him at the top of the ghost's lungs), and continued on, "Well, I do play it a bit. It's kinda relaxing, you know." That was a lie. Go with Sai was the most /unrelaxing/ activity Hikaru had ever done or could do (outside of school exams). "But thing is, I don't have the time to go to the Nihon-Kiin or those Go salons to play. We're going into the district tournaments in three weeks."

"Heh, I know. Tomoeda and Kadou have already been warned they'd be suspended if they tried anything else like that again. Well, why don't you play over the Internet?"

"They have Go over the Internet?" Hikaru asked doubtfully. He had never seen anybody but little kids or old men play, and he couldn't imagine those kinds of people playing Go online.

Mito shrugged and shifted his now-bandaged foot. Akiko-chan had left sometime in the middle of their conversation. "They have everything over the Internet. I mean, did you see that site about bonsai kittens? Bonsai kittens! Who in their right mind would stuff a kitten inside a tiny jar and treat it like some kinda exotic plant? Anyway, use a search engine or something. It can't hurt." Just then the other athlete gave him a questioning look. "Unless you don't know anything about computers."

Hikaru glared at his friend. "Of course, I do!" he huffed. Well, he did know enough to surf the Web, download files, and use email. He just didn't use his pasokon for much of anything, as he usually had other things to do than sit in front of a screen and type.

Internet Go, huh? At least now he had something else he could try.

WWWW

"Oi, Hikaru, what are you doing?"

The young boy was scrambling around his work desk, unplugging his Playstation, TV, and VCR from the powerbar and replugging his computer and monitor. A few minutes later, there was a deep bass sound as the machine began to boot up. Hikaru settled on his chair and waited impatiently for the process to finish. "I'm trying to find a way to let you play Go," he replied.

"Play…Really! Hikaru, are you really going to let me play?"

Hikaru rolled his eyes but grinned at the ghost. "Yes, Sai. If there's Go on the Internet, I might even be able to let you play every night."

"WaiWaiWai! Uchitai" Sai began buzzing around the room, waving his arms excitedly.

"Shhh!" Hikaru shushed him loudly. He opened Netscape Navigator and typed in the address for his favourite search engine. Then he typed in "Igo, game".

At the top of the search results list was World IgoNet. Hikaru clicked on it and began reading the introduction and FAQ. Sai was kneeling beside him, rhythmically squeezing his fan with both hands. "Hikaru? Hikaru?"

"Wait a minute, Sai. I need to read this first."

An infinitely long wait later… (but really, it was only about 20 minutes)

"Okay, Sai. Let's watch this game and I'll teach you about playing Go on the Net."

"Play Go in a net? Like a fisherman's net? Is this what this box is called? It doesn't look like a net at all! How can it catch fish? Or does it only catch things like those fake fish? And how can I play Go on it? Where's my opponent?" Sai's eyes were spiraling wildly as he tried to understand what Hikaru was talking about.

The boy sighed loudly. "Look here, silly." Hikaru waved a hand in front of Sai's face. Once he got the ghost's attention, he pointed at the computer monitor. Sai's eyes grew comically wild as he saw a bird's-eye view of a Goban. There was already a black stone on the upper-left star-point. He gasped when a white stone /magically/ appeared on the lower-right 3-3 point. "Hikaru! Hikaru! The box has ghosts playing Go! Oooh! I want to play them!"

"Sai, those aren't ghosts. They're people like me, living people. It's just that in the modern world we manage to find a way to talk with people even though they do not live anywhere near us," Hikaru lectured importantly. Sai was nodding his head in a sage fashion, saying "I see. I see."

"Now I can't really explain it all to you, but this 'box' is called a pa-so-kon. It would let us play Go games at any time for free! Anyway, right now, there's a game between two people. Look here." Hikaru pointed at the right side of the screen. "White is _jess4201_ from England. Black is _puppyBlak _from America. Also, there's something called komi. The Help section said that it's basically a handicap for white. See, it says komi is 5.5, which means you have to beat black by another 5.5 moku to win. I know there wasn't komi back when you used to play and there's no need for komi when the two of us play, but on the Net, they always have komi. They also have new rules on the Net, like we can set how long we will play a game. This game is set for only one hour and then after that, both black and white only get an extra fifteen minutes to play one-minute moves each. That's called byo-yomi. I don't know if you know that."

"I see," Sai replied quietly. Hikaru looked to see Sai's face grew intense, his violet eyes darkening. He grinned, knowing Sai would like this part next.

"After we watch this game, you will be able to play again as 'Sai'. Not as Torajirou or as me, like we would have to if we ever play people face to face." Sai had told him about Torajirou when he asked whether Sai had possessed someone else before him. "Fujiwara no Sai will become a living person again, here inside the pasokon."

Hikaru saw Sai's eyes widen once more, his mouth falling open. Then that young face grew radiant. The Japanese boy smiled at the ghost shyly, warmed at the realization that he had given somebody so much joy.

"Fujiwara no Sai as a living person…/my/ own existence…" Those violet eyes closed as Sai murmured those words reverently.

"Yes, Sai," Hikaru agreed, "your own existence."

"Thank you. Thank you, Hikaru."

-FIN-

_AUTHOR'S NOTES:_

_1. The names of the NetGo players were all made up. If they actually exist, there is absolutely no connection between me and them._

_2. There are probably events here I mentioned that occurred at different times canon-wise, but I beg your forgiveness. I needed them for this fic._

_3. As previously mentioned, this fic would not be made possible without the inspiration provided by Aishuu's "Brightly Burning". This is only a speculative one-shot based on the small hints of Hikaru's AU life that she features._

_4. Pasokon, short for "personal computer" is what the Japanese call their workstations._

_5. Bonsai kittens was something I read in one of the sasunaru MLs I'm part of. I'm not sure how long that site's been up, but let's say it's been up at the time Hikaru met Sai._

_Please don't hesitate to drop any comments. I love hearing from readers and wouldn't mind discussing some of your points if you leave a note in my LJ._


End file.
